'Empty Promises' draws response

-Readers react to Tribune series on vacant houses.

-Readers react to Tribune series on vacant houses.

March 19, 2006|PATRICK M. O'CONNELL Tribune Staff Writer

Reaction to "Empty Promises," The Tribune's multi-story series on vacant and abandoned houses, drew response from a wide variety of readers who provided an equally diverse set of opinions and experiences about how the issue affects their lives. Residents, realestate professionals, landlords, investors, city officials and nonprofit workers all weighed in with different takes and perspectives. We checked in with several of those readers to provide a follow-up snapshot on the widespread ramifications of vacant houses and how people are working to address this complex issue. Resident says he feels 'forgotten' Dale Kusmiez is frustrated. The 59-year-old northwest-side resident is tired of living among vacant houses and feeling the aftereffects of absentee landlords and renters who don't care about their properties. And he's irked at city leaders, who he says are not doing enough to tend to his neighborhood's concerns, especially the rash of abandoned property and the problems associated with them. "The way we feel about it out here is that Mayor Luecke has forgotten about us here in this neighborhood," Kusmiez said. "It seems like he's just plum forgotten about this part of town here." Kusmiez lives in the 1000 block of North College Street, next to and across the street from abandoned houses. His block is also the home of a vacant lot, where two houses once stood. Kusmiez said the lot is owned by a bank based in the Detroit suburbs, which owes thousands to the city in back taxes and does not maintain the property. Kusmiez and his neighbors mow the grass and ensure the lot is trash-free. Kusmiez has offered to buy the lot and put a fence around it but said he never received a response when he attempted to contact the bank. So the lot sits. "I just don't understand where everyone is going," said Kusmiez, a machinist who has lived on College Street since 1973. Kusmiez said he hopes The Tribune's series on abandoned houses will lead to action on the part of city officials or other residents. "Maybe somebody will get off their butt after this," Kusmiez said. Trying to turn a building around When a co-worker showed Gary Pulling the front-page photograph in the newspaper of the boarded-up apartment in the 900 block of North Portage Avenue, he picked up the phone. If there was a time to let people know about the plans for the building and his goals for turning other abandoned properties into well-maintained homes, this was it. Pulling, 35, is a general contractor who works with a group of investors to rehabilitate abandoned houses and buildings, including the apartment building photographed for a package on vacant properties in last Sunday's Tribune. Pulling grew up on O'Brien Street on the city's northwest side, and he said he wants to make a difference in a neighborhood now plagued by abandoned housing. "It's become a personal issue for me," said Pulling, who urged his grandmother to move out of the neighborhood after gunfire erupted outside her house several years ago. "I didn't want to see my hometown run down by crime and drugs and prostitution." Pulling and the investors he works with are intent on remodeling the Portage Avenue apartments, a complex that was rife with drugs and crime issues just a year ago. Owners eventually cleared out the old tenants, voluntarily boarded up the windows and are redesigning the units in hopes of attracting students when the rehab work is done in a few months. "We're not going to be the typical landlord," Pulling said. "What we want to do is provide a quality rehab." Pulling says the same goes for abandoned houses his company is targeting. To those who doubt, Pulling emphasized his group's genuine intentions to help struggling neighborhoods. "We're not the fly-by-night landlords," he said, "we're not the get-rich-quick landlords." Dieter: Determined to work on solutions Derek Dieter wants to be part of the solution in the battle against abandoned houses, a trend he describes as a frustrating one for the city. But the South Bend police officer and Common Council member who represents District 1, on the city's northwest side, knows answers aren't going to appear overnight. "It's just tough," Dieter said. "It's a long, long frustrating process and we're in need of people who don't want to put up with it anymore. But it's going to be tough to fix in a two- or three- or five-year period. It's going to take a lot of time and a lot of energy and money to do it." Last weekend, Dieter canvassed the 575 houses in his district in an area bounded by Lincoln Way West, Wilber Street, Vassar Avenue and Portage Avenue and found 41 percent of the houses to be vacant. "I knew it would be high, but I was kinda shocked it was that high," Dieter said. Of the 236 houses Dieter determined to be vacant, 53 were boarded up. Dieter said the city council is dedicated to finding ways to help neighborhoods and lower the number of abandoned properties. The common council already has drafted tougher legislation it hopes will cut down on thefts of materials from vacant properties. In a dream world where money was unlimited, Dieter said it would be ideal to simply work block by block on rehabbing houses and eliminating problem properties. But he realizes reality is a much tougher place. "It's a very hard problem to solve," Dieter said. "It's easy to identify the problem; the hard part is what to do. I really don't have an answer." Landlord wants to do her part Lorraine Wentz is a new landlord unabashed about her desire to make a little money, but also determined to provide a clean, comfortable home to people who might have few quality housing options. "As I got in to this more and more, I found there are a large variety of people who fall between the cracks," Wentz said. Wentz owns four recently purchased houses she plans to rent to Section 8 tenants, low-income residents who use the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development vouchers to help pay for rent. Section 8 has a cap on monthly rents, but Wentz is willing to lose out on a few dollars. "I thought, 'How do I help these people,' because I didn't know how to change it," Wentz said. As Wentz showed her houses to a reporter Thursday night, she touted the well-maintained exteriors and the spacious interiors. Outside one of the homes was a garbage bin filled with the leftover remains from a previous tenant at one of her other homes. "I'll provide a good, clean place to live, but then (tenants) have to treat the property right," Wentz said. Two of the vacant homes Wentz owns have families moving in shortly. So as Wentz, 49, strives to make a return on her investments, she's also hoping to do her part to help cut down on the number of abandoned properties within the city. Habitat working to make a dent in the numbers When Habitat for Humanity of St. Joseph County staffers Michael Cochran and Richard E. Dueringer saw "Empty Promises," The Tribune's series on abandoned houses, their reactions were a mixture of satisfaction and dismay. "I was happy to see someone willing to take on this story," Cochran said. "It's become obvious to me this is a very large problem." But the story also made it clear, Dueringer said, that Habitat's work in South Bend is hardly making a dent in the abandoned housing numbers. "It's a little disheartening to me that we're not going fast enough," said Dueringer, the county branch's development director. Locally, Habitat has been building between six to 10 homes a year, many on the city's vacant lots or the former sites of demolished houses. In 2006, construction projects are slated for the corner of McKinley Avenue and Arthur Street, on East Sorin Street and two "building blitz" houses on a block of West Dunham Street. By providing an affordable, appreciating asset to homebuyers who otherwise might not be able to buy a quality house at market value, Dueringer said Habitat is trying to take families out of the cycle of poverty while providing a spark that might jump-start the surrounding neighborhood.